HORROR BUSINESS Episode 147: Suspiria & Child’s Play w/Greg Polard, Jude Miller, and Ryan Rayburn‪.‬ Horror Business

Greetings, and welcome back to Horror Business. We have one awesome episode in store for you guys because we’re talking 1979’s Suspiria and 1988’s Child’s Play, and we’re joined by Greg Polard, Jude Miller, and Ryan Rayburn of early aught’s Philly straight edge outfit One Up!

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We start by talking about our experiences with these two films and how we were first exposed to them, mostly through video store posters. We talk about some of the things we’ve done involving horror recently, including the films It Follows, The Zone Of Interest, Society Of The Snow, There Is A Monster, the new season of True Detective, and an essay on the use of food in the film Possession.



Up first is Suspiria. We talk about our initial exposure to the film and give a very barebones summation of it, as well as the “fairytale logic” of the film in that it is essentially a running justification of a bunch of surreal gorgeous shots. We talk about some of the disjointed but unsettling aspects of the film, and Jude discusses the concept of knowing something is going to happen on screen and still being upset when it happens ala the man behind Winky’s in Mulholland Drive.



We touch upon how the plot of the film is secondary to the images of it, and how the film is quite upsetting when taken in context of the times i.e., the scene where a woman’s exposed heart is repeatedly stabbed. Justin relates an anecdote of watching this film in college and compares it to a Fulci film “but classier” and talks about how the scene in the end where the witch reveals herself is extremely upsetting.



We talk about Dario Argento’s personal opinions on the film and its role in his evolution as a filmmaker. The film’s near inability to be casually consumed is touched upon. We also discuss the other films in Argento’s Three Mother’s trilogy.



            Up next is Child’s Play. Justin opens the discussion by comparing the film to Hellraiser, in that both became mediocre franchises based upon an iconic character, and how this film is so much weirder than simply a killer doll movie. We again touch upon our initial exposure to the film as children.



We talk about Brad Dourif’s role in defining the character and how his intensity really sells the character as truly terrifying instead of simply another dumb horror movie. We talk about the film’s place in the realm of films that feature a child telling a fantastic story, not being believed, and being right in the end, as well as the film’s touch of crime drama and slapstick.



We talk about the film’s restrained and subtle sense of humor in comparison to the rest of the franchise.